How To Write A Press Release

Journalists get hundreds of these a day and delete almost all of them. Here's how to write one that survives.

Step 1. Lead with the news, not with you

Nobody cares that your company is 'excited to announce' anything. That's not news.

What changed? Who does it affect? Why now? Lead with that.

Step 2. Make it easy to use

A journalist wants to copy your quote and move on. Give them a good one.

Short — quotable. Sounds like a human said it, not a committee.

Step 3. Send it to the right person

Blasting a list gets you deleted. One journalist who covers your beat, with a personal note, gets you read.

Step 4. Give people somewhere to find you

When someone hears about you, they look you up. Find nothing, and they go somewhere else.

One page is enough to start — what you do. Who it's for — what it costs — how to reach you.

Step 5. Look like a real business

People judge you in about two seconds — good branding does more work than you'd think.

You don't need to spend thousands. You just need to not look like a hobby.

Being different beats being cheaper

Competing on price is available to anybody, which is precisely why it is a poor position. Somebody will always undercut you, and the customers who chose you for price will leave for the same reason.

So find another axis — faster — more reliable. Easier to reach. Specialized in something specific rather than adequate at everything. Any of those gives a customer a reason to choose you that a discount cannot replicate.

For a press release that works business, the differentiator is frequently something unglamorous. Answering the phone — turning up when you said. Explaining things clearly. These sound too simple to matter and they are routinely what customers actually complain about missing.

Then say it plainly. A difference nobody knows about is not a difference. It should be obvious within seconds of somebody encountering you, in the words you use and the way you describe what you do.

Where the first ones actually come from

The first customers of a press release that works business almost never arrive through advertising. They arrive through people, and understanding that saves you from spending money you do not have on channels that will not work yet.

Start with everyone who already knows you. Tell them plainly what you are doing and ask whether they know somebody who needs it. This feels awkward for about a week, and it produces more early customers than anything else available to you.

Then go where the need already exists. Somebody is already looking for what you do, and your job is to be visible in the place they are looking rather than in the place that feels comfortable to you.

Be specific when you ask. Do you know anybody who needs this is a question people cannot answer. Do you know anybody with a broken one of these is a question they can, and the difference in response is substantial.

Build them from what you already do

The mistake is trying to design a system in the abstract. The far easier approach is to document what you already do, the next time you do it.

So the next time you complete a standard job, write down the steps as you go. Not beautifully, just accurately. Twenty minutes of rough notes will capture something that would take an hour to invent from scratch, and it will be correct because it came from reality.

Do the same for the things that go wrong. What are the three problems that keep recurring, and what do you do about each one? That page is worth more than any amount of general advice, because it is specific to your actual business.

Improve it when it fails. A system that produces a poor result once has told you exactly where it is weak, and fixing that spot takes minutes. Systems get good by being corrected, not by being designed carefully.

There is more than one way to grow

More customers is the obvious direction and frequently the hardest. It is worth knowing that the alternatives exist, because they are often cheaper and faster.

Charging more for the same work is the most immediate. It requires no additional customers, no additional hours, and no additional cost. For most a press release that works businesses, a modest price increase produces more profit than a substantial increase in volume would.

Selling something additional to existing customers is the next cheapest. They already trust you and they already answer your calls, which is most of the difficulty in any sale. Working out what else they need is usually a matter of asking.

Increasing how often each customer returns is the third. A customer who buys twice as often is worth exactly as much as a second customer, and they cost nothing to acquire.

Common questions worth settling early

A few questions come up repeatedly in a press release that works business, and settling them early saves a great deal of second-guessing later. None of them have complicated answers, and most owners work them out the slow way.

The first is whether to specialize or stay broad. Broad feels safer because it excludes nobody, and it usually means competing with everybody. Specializing narrows the market and makes you the obvious choice within it, which is generally the better trade.

The second is when to invest in something better. The answer is almost always later than the urge arrives. If the current version is limiting the work you can take, upgrade it. If it simply looks tired, wait until profit pays for the replacement.

The third is how much to plan. Enough to know your costs and your price, and not so much that planning becomes a way of avoiding the work. The plan improves once real customers start telling you what they actually want.

And the last is whether it gets easier. It does, though not in the way people expect. The work does not get lighter. You simply get better at it, and the things that felt impossible in month one become ordinary by month twelve.

What people ask me

Does a press release still work?

If it's actually newsworthy and you send it to the right person, yes. Blasted to a list, no.

What makes something newsworthy?

It's new, it affects people, and it's happening now. 'We exist' is not news.

How long should a press release be?

One page — journalists are busy. If it takes them two minutes to find the story, it's already deleted.

Should I pay for a distribution service?

Usually not worth it for a small business — one well-targeted email beats a thousand ignored ones.

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